


that long-forgotten song

by dollylux



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Extremely Dubious Consent, Graphic Description, Knifeplay, M/M, Necrophilia, Obsessive Behavior, Size Kink, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Sex, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:30:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: jared visits daniel in georgia.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homo_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/gifts).



> this story will not be for everybody. please read the warnings carefully and know that each of them is meant, bolded and underlined. in the second half of this story, jared has dubcon sex with a 12-year-old boy. 
> 
> for my ladybug. another blood offering, my darling. <3
> 
> title from 'synesthesia' by afi.

_**the last red rose** _

 

“It doesn’t even hurt.”

Jared watches as Daniel bleeds, red like rubies seeping from his eyes. Sacrilege. Virgin Mary. Jesus on the cross the way his palms and wrists ooze crimson so deep it’s nearly black, but through it all he’s smiling. Smiling right at Jared, milky blue eyes trained on him under heavy lashes. Sleepy boy smiles.

“Are you sure?” Jared asks, stupidly.

“Mm,” Daniel hums, settling back against the ground, against the blood-drenched grass, against the dirt now mixing with red, the earth fighting to absorb it. There’s just so much of it. His eyes fall closed, long lashes against the bruise-colored haunt beneath them. He takes a deep breath that leaves him slowly. “I’m sure. I’m just so tired.”

Jared stays crouched beside him, blood pooling around his boots, soaking into his jeans. How can one person have so much blood?

“Do you want me to--” he starts.

“Hold me,” Daniel says, stealing thoughts, his smile stretching and stretching until his corpse-pale lips start to crack, and red seeps through like it had been there under the surface, just waiting. Red on the tongue that slides out to soothe over them. Mouthful of lifeblood. He doesn’t choke, doesn’t acknowledge the overflow. Jared feels his hands trembling, quiet like an aftershock.

Curling up around Daniel isn’t even a decision.

His waist is smaller than Jared’s arms remember, but he smells the same. Cigarettes and blood, the barely-warm of a premature baby. Jared nestles in, closes his eyes, and lets the rush of blood surround him, cover him. Drown him.

Finally.

“We’re here.”

A hard elbow makes contact with his junkie ribs, and he startles awake, reaching for the knife clipped to his belt before his eyes even open.

“What?” he snaps, his heartbeat steady even as his hand closes around the knife handle, thumbing the strap keeping it in its sheath.

“I said we’re here,” the trucker says, killing the engine of his semi and pulling a crusty old Tennessee Vols cap over his balding head. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna go take a piss, eat some steak and eggs, and get me some pussy. I don’t really give a shit what you decide to do, but this is where you get off, kid.” 

Jared lifts his sunburned arm up off the open window and drags a hand through the mess of his shoulder-length hair. He squints outside at the truckstop, at the stretch of highway beyond and the gentle rise of the mountains in the distance.

Blairsville, Georgia.

“Whatever,” Jared mumbles, grabbing his backpack off the floorboard and opening the door, using his long legs to jump down from the cab and touch down on the dusty gravel with his trusty Docs. Fall is just now starting to seep in around the edges in the northernmost jag of Georgia, so the breeze that cuts through as the sun starts to sink low is a welcome reprieve from the heat of the day.

He bypasses the gas station because he’d spent his last dollar two states ago, and his tired feet take his hollow body on down the road, scuffling in the dirt, eyes down as he eats up first one mile, then two.

There’s nothing to this town but dollar stores and churches, junked-out trailer parks and bruise-eyed mamas, the whole place smelling of spilled beer and roadkill and fried chicken, piles of discarded trash kicked up under Jared’s heavy boots. A desolate shithole to live and die in, a place nobody remembers and everybody tries their whole life to forget. 

He has the address of the cemetery memorized, had looked at a map before leaving Texas, and he finds himself there at the closed, rusted gate of it just as darkness starts to fill in all the color, leaving Jared alone with the moon and a fine spittle of stars under the clouds.

This is a different South than he’s used to, a wilder version of the one back home in Texas. The mountains here look exhausted and ancient, slumped in a permanent recline against the foothills with green that goes on forever and ever, amen. There are creatures furrowing in the dark beyond the boneyard; quiet, secret sounds of rabbits and deer and all the other hunted creatures of the night.

He’d had that dream, too; the night before Daniel died. His hungry-eyed boy stepping light as fae in some overgrown forest, silent so nothing with claws could find him, nothing with teeth that eat pale throats for dinner.

Something’d gotten to him anyway. Red and red and red, once again.

He should’ve known it was gonna end in blood, he muses, mouth twisting up in a mirthless smirk as he chews at the rawness inside his cheek. It’s as perfect as a story, careful with foreshadowing. There was never any other way for Jared and Daniel to end.

Jared hooks a long-boy leg over the side of the creaky fence and hauls himself over, landing on his feet like a cat in the silent graveyard.

Most kids his age are at home on a Monday night like this. Doing homework, watching MTV, sucking their boyfriend’s dick. Jared had decided not to go back when school started four days after Daniel died, had decided that institutions had taught him just about enough, and he was ready to learn on his own.

He hadn’t counted on his mama’s broken heart, on Dad’s quiet fury. It’s like they’d thought all along that Jared had been normal, somehow. That this was out of the clear blue sky, that he wasn’t just born wrong and grown up in the twisted, gnarled way that nature had intended from the start.

Well, maybe it was time for Mama and Dad to learn, too.

It’s easy to spot among the neglected graves. It’s bright and gleaming like bone in the moonlight while the other headstones dull and disintegrate under dirt and years of no one caring about the rot beneath. Daniel Llewellyn Hawthorne, just buried last week, is sleeping eternal beneath a fresh, curved mound of red clay dirt.

Sixteen years, five months, and nineteen days old when he’d drawn his last breath. But Daniel had been a ghost long before he’d been buried. Long before Jared had seen him in the hallway the first time and his heart had claimed him, right then.

White flowers crown the headstone, funereal scents of lilies and chrysanthemums and snow-white roses filling the air, masking any scent of decay on the jut-bone September night. Jared had always loved those smells, flower smells, scents meant for girls. Daniel’s favorite had been roses, and he’d smelled like them in the most unexpected places, in his pinkest places.

Jared’s knees meet the hard ground, his hair falling dirty and ignored all around his sunken face. Twelve days. Twelve days since he’d sipped his last offering from Daniel’s veins, since Daniel’s last, sighed-out breath, since Jared’s entire life stopped. Changed. He’s different now; a whole other beast than he was before. He knows, after the grey days that followed, that it’s just who he is now. There’s no going back.

He tucks his long hands into the dirt and curls down until his forehead is resting on the mound. Cicadas sound off from the woods nearby, singing their dying summer song as Jared’s fingers curl in the dirt, holding hands with the boy six feet beneath.

Daniel had big hands for such a delicate body, all spindly-long and bony knuckles and ripped-low fingernails. He used to tear and tear at his nails until they bled, and then he’d start in on Jared’s.

Jared’s nails have already started to grow back, all of Daniel’s precious teethmarks disappearing as his fingernails round out, adjusting to life after Daniel like the rest of him.

“I just,” Jared mumbles against the dirt, tasting earth on his tongue, watering it into mud with the tears that slip unnoticed from his eyes. He swallows, his dry throat clicking, and tries again. “I don’t know why I came down here. Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing here. There’s nothing here for me. Not even you. You’re not really here, are you?”

A rustle of leaves in the trees all around is all the answer he gets, the chill in the air making him curl in even tighter, Daniel’s hoodie dragged tight around him. He hasn’t taken it off since.

“I miss you. I just… fuck, babe.” His eyes squeeze shut tight, his chin trembling as he digs his forehead hard against the pile of dirt, the tip of his nose buried in it. “I j-just miss you. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

He’d come up with an answer of his own days ago, back when he’d realized where he was headed, where he would end up: here. Right here.

There’s a gun in his backpack with two bullets in it: one for anyone who tried to fuck with him, and one for tonight.

For him.

He fumbles with the bag, shaking fingers tugging on zippers until it’s open, rummaging around until he touches cool metal. The gun feels enormous in his hands, unfathomably huge in its power, its inflicting permanence. He thumbs the safety off and closes his lips into a kiss on the dirt.

“Is this what you want?” he whispers, tucking the gun against his temple, his whole body going limp as something very much like relief courses through him. “Is this what you want from me?”

An ambulance siren shatters the silence, erupting into the night like a shriek. Jared jumps, the gun falling from his hand and landing on the mound with a quiet thud. He lifts up and cranes around to watch the ambulance fly by, lights bouncing off headstones as his heart races in his throat.

He sighs, shoving his hand into the dirt again, closing it into a fist this time and yanking it out, pulling a handful of dirt with him. The pile shifts and resettles in his wake, and he watches, fascinated. Another hand shoved in, another fist of dirt. The mound grumbles with his disturbance, dirt toppling easily. 

It’s so easy.

He goes in with both hands now, putting his whole, exhausted body into it as he starts to dig, the gun falling at some point and thumping against his knee. 

_Yes_ , his heart sighs. _Yes, keep going._

He digs and digs, piling dirt up all around the hole he’s unearthing again, and there’s nothing in his mind for a blissful half hour, nothing at all. He comes to a couple of feet down, breathing hard as his newly-ripped nails bleed and sweat stings his eyes and soaks into his layers of clothes. 

There’s gotta be something around here.

He staggers through the graveyard and follows the shaky chainlink fence to a small white shed rotting in the back corner. He lifts the rusted hook from the eye and pries it open, fumbling around inside until he comes back with a shovel twice as old as he is, caked with dirt but it’s good enough for him.

Time blurs again as he falls into the rhythm of digging, his muscles burning, whole body shaking with exhaustion, but it all falls away the second the shovel touches something hard, something wooden.

He throws the shovel up to the surface and starts in with his hands again, crouched like a man possessed as he kicks and shoves dirt away, not stopping until the top of the casket is clear. 

It’s a shitty, cheap coffin, barely more than a pine box. Jared grits his teeth and curses Daniel’s piece of shit of a mother, curses himself for not doing something about this himself, somehow. Making sure Daniel had better than this. He deserves better than this.

The hunting knife at his waist is sturdy and long, and he wedges it between the box and the lid and works for a good half hour on prying it open until finally, finally it gives way.

Daniel is there, serene and soft, paler than life, his hair long and tucked behind his ears, settling around his shoulders. He’s dressed in a suit for Easter Sundays, a striped blue and white tie that makes him look like a little boy. Jared stays crouched there on the rim, his hand gripped tight and trembling on the creaky lid.

He’s missed him so much.

The coffin is small, slim for a nothing boy like Daniel, but Jared’s scrawny, too. Skinnier than he used to be now that he doesn’t eat more than he has to. He pushes the lid until it stays up on its own and carefully lowers himself down into the casket, nudging at Daniel to make room along his left side, just like they used to in bed.

It’s hard to move him, impossible that his little body weighs so much, but Jared manages. He settles in along Daniel’s side, out of breath and exhilarated beyond anything he’s ever felt before. 

“What are you wearing?” he whispers, propping up onto his elbow and reaching over, loosening Daniel’s tie and pulling it off, unbuttoning the crisp white shirt underneath it to reveal his smooth, milk-pale chest, the beginnings of the incisions made above both nipples. Jared slides his hand into the shirt and strokes over the stitches, over his soft, babypink nipples, his eyes falling closed as he lowers down and wraps the other arm around him, propping his head up beneath it.

The smell of decay and embalming fluid is cloying, sickly sweet, a scent not altogether unpleasant when he’s looking at his beautiful boy, his broken doll with his full mouth and pale lashes that glow translucent in the moonlight. He tucks his nose into his hair and strokes over Daniel’s sunken belly, pinky dipping into his navel.

“You didn’t let me say goodbye,” he says against Daniel’s ear, his eyes burning again with tears as his fingers curl to grip the skin of his tummy, wishing he could bruise him again, like he used to, the way Daniel liked. He pushes his face hard against his, nose digging into his cheek, mouth against his jaw.

The scent of death will never leave him now. Not ever.

“I wish you would’ve told me. I wish I’d known. I would’ve been there. I woulda held you in the bathtub, if that’s what you really wanted. Just so you wouldn’t’ve been alone. So you wouldn’t have been scared.”

He’s crying now, really crying, salt soaking into dead skin that’s cold as stone. He doesn’t realize he’s holding the knife again until it’s pressing to his own wrist, his hand steady for once as he digs the tip in and slices clean and careful across.

His breath leaves him in soft, gasping hiccups, crying like he’s a little boy again as he presses his wrist to Daniel’s lax mouth, blood pouring down the sides of it and staining his hair, his nice, clean shirt.

“I could’ve given you this. Could’ve been inside of you while you did it. Just one last time. I just needed you one last time.”

A horrifying whine starts up low in his throat as he kisses a long drip of his own blood on Daniel’s neck, tongue stealing out to lick up to his jaw, to his chin, wrist falling away so he can get at his mouth.

He’s so hard in his jeans that it nearly takes his breath, and he presses in roughly against Daniel’s side, making it this-side of cruel love, just like he used to. For Daniel.

He sucks on his bottom lip, lapping up the blood pooled there in his sealed mouth that’s been wired shut. He runs his tongue over his slick teeth, growling as he sinks his teeth into first his top lip and then the bottom one, not letting himself bite down like he wants to, rip like he’s craving.

_Fuck me like I’m dead._

The coffin creaks and shifts on the vault as he lifts up and moves down to Daniel’s feet, lifting his legs and forcing them apart to make room for himself at the foot of the casket. He makes quick work of Daniel’s belt, the button of his dress pants, the white Hanes underwear they’d put him in. He yanks them all down to his knees and grunts with exertion as he lifts Daniel’s legs and lets them rest on one of his shoulders, Daniel’s small, tight ass resting on the tops of his thighs. He feels something like a plug in Daniel’s ass, and he reaches down to fumble for it, gritting his teeth as he strains to pull it out, toss it aside. 

He stares down at Daniel’s bloody mouth, at his messy hair, at the expanse of his frozen chest. The only sound in the night is Jared’s zipper, the rustle of his clothes, spit hitting his palm.

There’s no question, no hesitation, and he keeps his eyes open when he forces his way inside, nestling his cock into Daniel’s lax asshole, startled by the inhuman lack of warmth. A shiver courses through his body, driving straight up his spine as he lifts up onto his knees, grips Daniel’s starved thighs in his hands, and starts to fuck into him.

He bites both of his lips to keep from moaning, and he tastes blood all over again when he does, the flavor making him feel wild, like he’s barely in control of himself, like he could do anything tonight, anything right here, with his boy. His forever love.

Leaning back onto his haunches, Daniel’s thighs pushed up, there’s just enough moonshine to break up the shadows between their bodies, letting Jared see it: his favorite place in the whole entire world, where his too-big dick is forcing Daniel open, where he’s nestled his heartbeat inside of him, put some life back into Daniel, just for a little while.

“Beautiful,” he says so softly, a broken hymn, and it shakes all through him and rips at his heart as he works himself in and out, savoring. Memorizing. 

_My love. My love._

He forces Daniel to bend in half so he can get close to him, kiss his blood red mouth, press their foreheads together while he digs nasty and desperate inside of Daniel’s immobile body. Closing his eyes, he can almost pretend this is part of the game, that Daniel’s made himself cold, holding his breath so well, playing the part to the hilt so they can both get off on the thought.

Daniel’s just playing dead. He’s just playing.

“Good boy,” Jared whispers as he kisses and sucks at his mouth, tears smearing with blood on Daniel’s beautiful face, and Jared ravenously laps up every bit of it. “That’s my good boy. Feel so fucking good for me. C’mon, wake up. Just for a minute. J-Just for a minute, god. _Please._ ”

He cuts off the whimper that starts in his throat, fighting against it as his chin trembles and his arms wrap up tight, trying so hard to feel a single, faint inhalation, the tiniest movement. He can hear the crickets and the wind and the cars on the nearby highway up above as he grinds into him, and suddenly swears he can feel Daniel moving under him, swears he feels the pressure of his lips against his tongue, and just the thought, the glorious daydream of maybe, maybe, maybe is enough. It’s perfect.

Jared comes inside of Daniel with a violence that would hurt a real boy, a living boy, even Daniel, the whole casket shuddering on its platform, the lid rocking and knocking against Jared’s shoulder. He lifts up and arches his back, digging in as deep as he can get as his asshole pulses and his balls empty, his cock flexing inside of his dead boyfriend for the very last time.

He yanks at Daniel’s shoes and his pants, pulling until he’s bare from the waist down and Jared can spread his legs properly, fingers petting reverent and tender over his own name carved on the inside of Daniel’s runway model thigh. He settles in against him, on top of him, for once not worrying about giving Daniel his whole weight, not fearing broken ribs or if his little bird can breathe.

His hands find Daniel’s hair as he relaxes into kissing him again, blood trickling from his left wrist and getting brushed into hair that’ll never grow again, that will never be washed by Jared’s careful hands, that will never thin out and fade to grey, that Jared would have adored until he died, a perverted old man with an angel by his side. That’s what everybody would say, would have called Daniel. 

His cock softens inside of him, come trickling out and staining the cheap white satin beneath. It feels like lifetimes that he stays right there, kissing and nuzzling, the comfort of it unbearably beautiful and lulling himself down into an exhausted sleep.

He wakes an hour or so before dawn, disoriented until his eyes adjust and his body comes to, and he remembers. He’s slipped out of Daniel’s body while he slept, and he tucks himself back into his jeans and lifts up, tears burning in his eyes once again.

The sky lightens above as he dresses Daniel again, tucking him lovingly back into his pants, buttoning his shirt, putting his jacket back on him because he gets cold so easy. He’s always cold. He fixes his hair and finds his knife again, gathering up a long fall of it and twisting it around his fingers, cutting it off near Daniel’s scalp. He tucks the hair and the knife into the sheath, panic already setting in for what he’s about to do. What he needs to do.

He touches Daniel’s face, long fingers petting over his forehead, his eyebrows, his long lashes, sweet little nose. His mouth. God, that mouth. 

“You know I love you,” he tells him, thumb against his bottom lip, wishing he could see his eyes again, wishing Daniel would give him that sad smile of his, the only one he owned, just one last time. “You’ll be with me until the day I die. I swear. Forever.”

It’s a vow in a sacred space, and he leans down to seal it with a final kiss to Daniel’s full mouth, breathing in the sweet stench of death like he’s savoring it. He doesn’t let himself look again, doesn’t glance back down as he climbs out of the coffin and stands beside it, pulling the lid down closed again.

He glances up at the rectangle of lightening sky above, the faint shimmer of birdsong surrounding the world waking up there. His heart thuds in his ears as an impulse suddenly grabs him by the throat, pressing in until he can’t breathe, until he finds himself staring at the dirt wall in front of him with his hand at his waist, around the knife handle.

He can’t. He just fucking can’t. Can he?

Licks his lips, shifts on the concrete beneath. He lets five whole seconds go by.

The lid creaks like a horror movie when he lifts it again, and Daniel is still there, sleeping where Jared left him. He won’t mind. He wouldn’t hesitate to do the same. He would love it.

Jared doesn’t climb in again, doesn’t give in to that particular temptation, to the insatiable throb of his dick, just kneels down beside the coffin and reaches in, massive hand braceleting Daniel’s emaciated wrist.

The death slices are stitched up, ghost-white beneath a neat, vertical series of x’s that make light of the gashes Jared had seen on him that day, that drained Daniel of nearly all of his lifeblood. He rubs his thumb down the line of stitches, pushes in to feel the embalmed veins. The strap on the knife sheath opens with a soft snap, the handle cold in his palm.

He presses the sharp blade just beneath the hard jut of wristbone, hand gripped up tight on the middle of Daniel’s arm. He takes a deep breath, sets his jaw, and starts to saw into the bone.

It takes longer than he thought it would, and it’s much more clinical without the gush of blood or the scream that he keeps waiting to come from Daniel’s blood-stained, quiet mouth, but he finally gets to the other side of Daniel’s arm with the blade, and the hand falls off and into Jared’s own, their fingers tangling together naturally.

He stares down at it, a smile pulling at his mouth as he rubs the pad of his thumb along Daniel’s palm, bringing the hand up to his mouth to press a kiss to the bony spread of his knuckles. He tucks the hand into his pocket, puts the knife back up, and tucks Daniel’s handless arm back into the casket, along his side. He gives him another goodbye kiss, forehead-nose-mouth-chin, _goodbye, my love, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye_ , and then finally, finally, closes the coffin for the last time.

He climbs out, his mind blank, shut down. He’s the only person who should ever been allowed to bury Daniel. And he’ll be the last one to do it.

The white roses are turning brown, but he grabs the bouquet out of their crystal vase anyway, spreading the flowers out and tossing them down into the grave, smiling a little when he hears them hit the coffin. He would’ve filled the casket with red roses, if he could have. Would have planted them in the ground right over his grave, let it get consumed by them, by velvet red and thorns and their soft perfume.

This’ll have to do.

He wraps the hand in an old Spacehog shirt and tucks it into his bag, right beside the unused gun. 

Filling the hole again takes until dawn, and he barely has the energy to return the shovel to the shed and walk back into town. He collapses on a bench outside a filling station, trembling from no food and losing so much blood, but he knows Erica’s number by heart.

He pushes two quarters into the payphone beside him and dials the number without standing up, praying she’s still at home, that she’s awake. She’s always been there when he needs her; always.

“Hello?”

She sounds sleepy, worried. Probably saw where the call is coming from. Jared rests his head against the glass window of the gas station and closes his eyes.

“I need you to come get me.”

 

\---

_**the devil went down to georgia** _

Fuckpig’s next stop is in Savannah, one of Momo’s favorite cities. He talks about ghosts all the way from Knoxville, ones that climb into bed with you like a lover or stalk the hallways like your last night alive. Jared keeps quiet and watches the Appalachian mountains roll along beside the bus, thinking of his own ghost in Georgia.

Adri goes into the gas station just at the Tennessee-Georgia stateline to piss and grab some Red Bulls, and Jared bails out with Jeff, not saying a word as they light up cigarettes and watch Chad fill up the bottomless gas tank.

Jared can feel Jeff’s eyes on him, and maybe they’ve only known each other for a few months, but there’s a connection between them, a wicked kindred spirit in the guy texting a middle schooler and scratching his balls with a Kamel Red dangling from his mouth. He keeps his gaze fixed on the Waffle House across the highway and refuses to let his hand tremble as he flicks ash into sun-scorched grass.

“How far away is he?” Jeff asks. Present-tense and everything. Jared’s veins squeeze in sharp, thankful pain. He grits his teeth, takes a deep breath.

“Hour or so,” he replies, like it doesn’t matter. Like it’s not destroying him, like it’s not something he thinks about every goddamn day. It’s harder though, being here. Being so close. He shoots a quick glance over at Jeff and catches his eyes.

“I’ve got a buddy that lives here. Mean ol’ sonuvabitch, but he’s got a truck that’ll take you to the last fuckin’ day on earth. Bet he wouldn’t mind lettin’ you borrow it for a day or two.”

Jeff says it so casually, like Jared’s taking a quick jaunt to see the world’s second biggest ball of twine and not his long-dead boyfriend’s grave. Jared shifts from one foot to the other, taking a few seconds to reign it the fuck in, to not let on how fucking much it means to him. He swallows with a dry click and squints in the hot sun, fingers shaking a little as they brush his bottom lip, cigarette following.

“Sounds good,” he manages on an exhale. Jeff nods, once and decided. He presses a few buttons on his phone and saunters away, his low voice carrying tone but not words back to where Jared waits, refusing to let tears touch him. Not now.

Not yet anyway.

 

Blairsville looks just the same as it did back in high school, the last time he was here. Same starving, beaten-silent desolation, same empty storefronts and overflow of churches and discount cigarette shacks, same hollow-eyed wraiths wandering the sides of the road and haunting trashed front yards like a Romero flick, meth-rot gapes where teeth used to be and filthy children playing way too close to pock-marked roads.

No government anywhere gives a shit about this place.

Jared had found Daniel’s mama’s address a few years back, had thought about coming down here and paying her a visit, maybe pissing in her flowerbed. He pulls into the trailerpark now in a borrowed truck, trying not to make too much eye contact with the bobblehead Jesus on the dash or the kids playing in the gravel with dirty skin and hunger-swollen bellies, every single one of them stopping to watch the rusted-out red Ford pickup slither through and come to a stop in front of the most junked-out trailer in the park.

He knows, without question, this is the right one.

He hadn’t seen the boy on the front stoop until he stood up, but now he can’t look anywhere else. His hair is stringy and unwashed, hanging down and touching his bare, raw-boned shoulders, his collarbone jutting up like a model’s. He’s shock-pale and so thin it’s amazing he has the energy to stand up at all, to put one bare foot in front of the other, not wincing when he walks across the gravel and comes to a stop next to Jared’s truck.

“You lost?” comes a country song twang, voice so soft Jared thinks maybe he hallucinated it. He knows this boy, knows his face, knows his kiddie porn-pink mouth and his translucent blue eyes and his haunt-white hair. Knows him biblically, knows what his insides taste like. He swallows, wet-mouthed, and licks his lips like a predator. His mouth feels full of canines.

Maybe he’s never had this boy, but there’s no way in hell he isn’t related to Daniel.

“You live here?” he asks instead of giving any kind of real answer, arm draped on the open window of the truck in studied ease. The boy shifts from one foot to the other on the hot gravel, squinting up at Jared like he can size him up if he looks hard enough. He can’t be more than ten.

“Yeh,” the boy replies, folding his arms over his chest and pulling his mouth together in what Jared supposes is trying to be a frown, but ends up looking like the sweetest little pout. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “I’m Caleb.”

These mountains shape that word in his mouth, southern to the last drop: _cah-ee-lub_ , slow like honey. The truck idles low like a throaty groan, and it’s too hot for this boy to be outside, the world too bad a place for him to be all alone here. And Jared should know.

“You wanna go get somethin’ to eat, Caleb?” He lets Texas round out his own words, making sure the boy knows he’s not some slick Yankee in a stolen truck who cruises slums for little boys. He’s just as much of a redneck as this child is in so many ways, and the prize of a middle school boy climbing up into the truck on the bench seat beside him is nothing more than happenstance.

They amble out of the trailerpark, past the kids who watch them go with those bright, silent eyes of theirs, and Caleb doesn’t speak until they’re out on the road, Bob Seger yowling heartache from the tinny speakers.

“Why you bein’ nice to me?”

No shoes, no shirt, nobody to miss this child. Jared feels the hot rush of blood through his juicy black heart.

“I’m not from around here,” he says after awhile, letting the song transition into commercials and the boy get just a little nervous. “I need help finding a graveyard, and I’ll get you a burger if you help me out. Sound good?”

Caleb nods, fast and hungry, skinny fingers plucking at the sun-rotted seal on the open window. He stares out at the passing town for as long as he can stand it before he turns those ghost-boy eyes on Jared.

“And you’ll take me back home?”

One side of Jared’s mouth twitches. They pass Day of Grace Baptist Church, the sign out front stark and glaring right at him: _The kisses of sin will kill your soul._

“Promise,” he replies. He turns up the radio when the low churn of “Enter Sandman” starts up, and Caleb relaxes back against the dusty seat. Jared glances over, eyes catching on his tiny pink-milk tits. He grinds his teeth. “Put your seatbelt on.”

Caleb obeys without question, a trait Jared takes note of and savors, not bothering to hide it when he adjusts himself in his pants.

 

They slide into a bench at some diner Caleb points out, and Jared lets the boy order whatever he wants, not even flinching when he gets a bacon cheeseburger, chili fries, fried okra, and a cherry Coke the size of his tiny arm. He digs into his pot roast and potatoes and watches Caleb gorge himself, stuffing fries into his mouth while he’s still chewing, his eyes wide as a stray dog, his ballerina body curled up protectively around his various plates.

“Where’re your parents?” he asks when Caleb finally slows down, his mouth stained with chili and ketchup, the waitress wandering over to bring him a second soda.

“Mama’s at work at the laundromat. She works down at Last Chance of the night.” He wipes his mouth on a dirty napkin, not even reacting when Jared reaches for the dispenser and hands him a clean one. 

Mama’s a stripper. She’s gotta be pretty, especially if she had two boys who look like Daniel and Caleb.

“And your Daddy?” He nurses an iced tea sweet enough to curl his lips, his fingers twitching to reach over and tuck all that long white hair behind the boy’s ears, to brush it out until it’s soft as cornsilk. His hand finds his dick again under the table and starts up a slow, lazy massage.

Caleb scowls, full petal mouth pursing as he glares at the cherries in the bottom of his Coke.

“Don’t got no daddy,” he says, swirling his straw around, ice clinking in foggy plastic. “And anyway, me’n Mama do just fine. It don’t matter none.”

“Any brothers or sisters?” It’s the question he’s been wanting to ask, but he says it just as casual as anything else he’s said to the boy, thumbing at the thick ring of metal shoved through his cockhead in his faded black jeans, his eyes fox-flicked and trained on the little boy he’s fattening up across the table. 

“I had a brother once. A long time ago.” Caleb sounds sad, too old to be so young, and Jared feels a sentimental tug on his heart for what a boy who can’t be more than ten would consider a long time.

“What happened to him?” He watches the waitress start over from the corner of his eye.

“Mama said he died. I was real little, so I don’t ‘member much. He lived somewhere else. Texas or somethin’. I got summa his clothes and stuff. And his old tape collection.” Caleb glances up at Jared thoughtfully. “You ever heard of The Cure?”

The fist around Jared’s heart squeezes, hard.

“Yeah,” he manages. The waitress stops at the table. Jared can’t seem to take a full breath. “I have.” He glances up at her, pulling his wallet out and handing her his credit card. “And bring him a strawberry shake.”

“Oh, I’m plum full, mister. I don’t think I can--”

“You can have a couple of sips,” Jared insists, not catching the odd look the waitress gives him before walking away. “And you can call me Jay.”

Caleb smiles at him for the first time, and it’s such an unknown sight on such a hauntingly familiar face that Jared has to fight off tears.

“Thanks for dinner, Jay. We don’t got nothin’ to eat at the house. I don’t think I ever eat that much in my whole life!”

Their waitress slides a strawberry shake in front of Caleb and a receipt and a pen in front of Jared. He signs without looking away from Caleb, from his pink tongue poking at the red straw coming up out of his shake.

“Bring him a to-go cup for it,” he tells her, passing off the ticket and licking his lips when Caleb’s cheeks hollow out for his first good suck. “Good?”

Happy boy-blue eyes find him as a mouth he’d serve a life sentence for gets creamier and rosier. He nods, not pausing in his steady slurping of sweet, frozen strawberry milk.

 

It’s close to sunset when they pull onto the dirt road leading to the cemetery, and Jared turns off the truck, letting the stirring, living quiet of a summer evening spill into the truck.

“Why you wanna come here?” Caleb asks quietly, still nursing at his shake, now in a syrofoam cup. Jared stares across the jagged teeth headstones in the pitiful little graveyard, finding Daniel’s like a bloodhound and not looking away from it for a long moment.

“Somebody I used to know is buried here.” They’re hard words to give away, too much truth, and he shifts in his seat, tearing his eyes from the dead in the distance to look over at the scrawny boy at his side.

“Girlfriend?” Caleb mumbles around the straw he’s chewing flat.

“Boyfriend,” Jared corrects, savoring the wide-eyed stare he gets from Caleb then. 

“You’re a queer?” the boy asks, swallowing the melted cream he’d been holding in his mouth.

“Probably one of the queerest ever.” Jared raises an eyebrow and grins at him, sharp as a wolf, and it makes Caleb laugh.

“Mama said my brother was a queer. He got in trouble one time cause-a Patrick Shelby across the way. Patrick used to let my brother watch him and his girlfriend doin’ it. Mama found them out behind the dumpsters one night with Daniel suckin’ on Patrick’s thing. She tanned his hide!”

Hearing Daniel’s name out loud, in this sweet little boy’s mouth, is enough to gut him.

“Who told you that?” he asks, the words abraded, thin. 

“Patrick,” Caleb admits, falling into an uneasy quiet for a minute. He shifts on the seat, careful not to look at Jared. “He makes me do it, too. But I only do it when Mama’s not home. Patrick comes over to our trailer cause he’s got him a family now. Three little boys. We only got one room, and I share a bed with Mama, but Patrick don’t mind.”

“I bet he doesn’t,” Jared murmurs. 

“I’m twelve!” Caleb says defiantly, sitting up a little straighter in the seat and finally looking over at Jared. “He says if I can do long division, I’m old enough to make a man feel good.”

Jared looks over then, catching Caleb’s eye. The boy doesn’t look away.

“Can you do long division?” he asks.

Caleb nearly preens.

“I’m real good at math,” he promises. 

Jared feels that low, delicious ache he gets when he’s about to do something illegal. 

“You ever seen a pierced dick?” He pulls slowly at his belt, watching Caleb’s eyes lower and stay. He shakes his head, slow and spellbound. Jared turns in the seat and leans back against the door, eyes trained on Caleb’s face as he works down his zipper and pulls himself out, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a relieved sigh when his cock slaps up against his belly, shirt tugged up to show off the furry line of his happy trail.

“You’re so big,” Caleb breathes. He moves closer without being prompted, cup still clutched in his hand. Jared reaches down to wrap long fingers around his cock, hefting it up from his belly and giving it a few lazy tugs, watching the tip ooze out slick, just for Caleb.

“Take a sip of your shake and suck on it a little.” He holds it out to Caleb, the 8-gauge ring glistening with precome, and just the piercing is about as big as the boy’s little doll mouth. But Caleb, every inch Daniel’s little brother, obeys without question, taking a hurried drink of his milkshake and shuffling forward, nervous eyes flicking between Jared’s face and his cock before he lowers down and wraps careful lips around the head, trying his best not to dribble melted shake all over.

Jared shivers hard at the sharp bite of cold on his dick, his head falling back out the open truck window and into the warm night air, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard as he swallows.

“Fuck,” he gruffs, one paw coming down on the top of Caleb’s head, tangling in the nest of his hair and staying there. Caleb whimpers, slurping as best he can and swallowing the contents of his mouth in a big gulp, his knowing little tongue wiggling against Jared’s slit as he tries so very hard to take more than the tip into the delicious heat of his mouth. He pulls off with a gasp, making Jared shiver again as air hits his wet cock.

“Was that--”

“Do it again,” Jared instructs, nodding at the shake, big fingers brushing at his messy hair, tucking it behind hot-tipped ears like he’s been dying to do all afternoon. Caleb sucks in more shake and takes Jared into his mouth with more confidence this time, almost immediately gagging when Jared gives him an experimental tug down, his PA hitting the back of the boy’s throat as he coughs milkshake all over his dick. It slimes down the long length of it and down his balls, and Caleb’s cheeks are red hot when he lifts up, looking at Jared in tearful shame.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, wiping his mouth off on his arm and sniffling. “It’s just so big, and--”

“Lick it up,” he cuts in, keeping his voice quiet, firm but with very little threat. He pulls his jeans down some more, getting some room to spread his thighs and let Caleb’s eager tongue get at his balls. He groans, arching his back and rocking up into the bath like a cat, cradling the base of Caleb’s skull in the cup of his hand but not pushing him anymore. He doesn’t want to scare him off this early.

Caleb likes this game, is natural as a kitten with his deft little licks, and he’s making some beautiful little humming sounds as he laps at Jared’s slit again, teeth clicking against the metal curved there. Jared thumbs over his warm cheek and the baby-round of his jaw, silently ordering him to look up.

“You ever let anybody fuck you?”

He feels the heat flood Caleb’s face, feels the rabbit-kick of his heart in his tender throat where his hand is now stroking, slow and careful. Caleb shakes his head quick to get the confession over with, his throat bobbing under Jared’s loose grip as he swallows.

Jared reaches down with his left hand to give his dick a couple of appeasing strokes, using little boy spit to ease the way as he lifts Caleb closer with the hand around his neck.

“Are you gonna be a good boy for me and take all your clothes off and get in the bed of the truck while I look for something to make it hurt less?” He squeezes, just a very little, and he feels Caleb try to gasp. He nods, his eyes wet in the growing dark, glistening just as much as his dick and strawberry-soaked mouth.

“Yessir,” he whispers, his voice trembling. They stare at each other with only the barest of inches between them, Caleb’s legs stretched wide in his awkward splay on Jared’s lap.

“Get your hand on my dick,” Jared breathes, nestling their foreheads together, his tongue sliding out to lick at Caleb’s slack mouth. Caleb does, fingers not meeting as he grips up under the thick head, unsure and shy. Jared lifts his hips, pushing up into the barely-there grip, his hand in a bruising clutch on Caleb’s jaw as he pulls him in and licks into his panting mouth. 

“Good boy,” he groans, his own hand rubbing hard at the bulging fullness of his balls, hoping the boy has some of his pubes stuck in his teeth. He opens the door, the overhead light brightening the cabin, and he moves his hand from Caleb’s throat to under his arm to heft him out of his lap and into the sun-scorched grass. “Clothes off. There’s some blankets back there. Get on ‘em.”

He knows a sick fuck like Randy keeps something in here to fuck little boys with, and he grins when he rummages through the bullets and mustard packs in the glove compartment and finds a well-used tub of Vaseline.

The truck squeaks on its hinges when he climbs out and stalks to the bed of it where he can see only a hint of pale, underage limbs, hear the quiet rustle of denim on skin and then nothing. Jared spares a quick glance around at the abandoned boneyard, knowing nobody comes here after dark, especially not to this dark corner where they unload bodies.

He climbs into the bed of the truck and starts working on his boots, loosening them up just enough to yank them off, his filthy jeans following right after. He sheds his shirt and tugs his hair out of its loose bun, letting it finally fall feral and long around his face when he crawls over to where Caleb is sprawled on dirty wool army blankets that probably scratch up his delicate skin and don’t feel like the bed of roses this darling boy deserves for his first time.

Jared realizes as he’s popping the lid off the Vaseline and scooping out a glob of it that he’s absolute shit at giving boys good first times.

“Spread your legs for me,” he says, moving in close and grabbing a skinny ankle in his left hand, hauling Caleb’s legs whore-wide and rubbing at his precious little asshole with a generous amount of slick. Caleb tenses up, trying to pull his knees together and shift away from Jared’s insistent fingers, but he just tightens his grip on his ankle and pulls him close again, gritting his teeth as he forces two fingers in immediately, not stopping until they’re nestled in virgin heat and Caleb is whimpering, cold, curled toes pulling at the hair on Jared’s thigh.

“Hurts,” he mumbles, tears in his voice, but Jared doesn’t respond, doesn’t do anything but close his eyes and imagine his insides, imagine all the red of his beautiful, untouched cunt, imagine the way it throbs and trembles when Jared works him open, forcing him to give in, kneading and stretching until there’s a third finger and Caleb is gasping in deep, sucking lungfuls, leg kicking fitful and useless in Jared’s bruising hand.

A glance down tells Jared that Caleb’s little candy cock is completely soft, tiny and pink and flopping against his well-fed belly. He turns his hand inside of him and brushes up, baring his teeth and closing his throat around a growl when Caleb jolts beneath him, arching up hard and grinding down against Jared’s hand, completely helpless to do anything else.

“Feel good?” he asks, letting go of his ankle to dip into the Vaseline again, slathering up his dick and spreading out on top of him while he fucks him soft with long, unrelenting fingers. Caleb nods, his eyes wide in the near dark and staring at Jared in awe, everything about him open now, his fingers clasped around Jared’s forearm, petting at him in a distracted, gentle way that makes Jared fall more than a little in love.

“Now this is gonna hurt,” he starts, forcing Caleb’s shivering, starved thighs to clutch at his hips as he rubs the pierced head of his cock against his asshole. “But I want you to not scream, if you can help it. Bite me, if you have to. But try to keep quiet, you hear me?”

Caleb is so tense he’s shaking, his nails digging into Jared’s arm at just the threat of his cock, just the touch of metal on a place never meant to take something this big. Jared spreads his legs, digging his knees into the scratch of blankets, and watches in obsessive hunger when he forces his way into Caleb’s neglected scrap of a body, savoring the stunned, eviscerating terror that takes over his lovely face.

He’s only halfway in before Caleb’s body simply stops him from going any further, and Caleb is crying as quietly as he can, soft, damp hiccups spilling into the evening as the sky blazes with watercolors overhead and Jared falls into his most beautiful memory above him. 

“Shh,” Jared breathes, lowering down and arching up a bit, his chest just above Caleb’s trembling mouth. “C’mon. Bite me as hard as you can. As hard as it hurts.”

Caleb leans up like an infant and latches on, biting at Jared’s nipple so hard it actually shocks him. He doesn’t hold in the growl this time, just shifts on top of him and forces his way in deeper, only stopping when Caleb screams around his mouthful of flesh, nails digging into Jared’s biceps and drawing blood.

“That’s enough,” he promises, pulling out just a little and easing back in, going as slow as his body will let him, using his hips to curl and dig so he doesn’t have to move much, not yet. He dislodges Caleb from his chest and knows he’s bleeding there, too, the knowledge bringing a smile to his face as he leans down and licks into the boy’s mouth, kissing him as best as he can while Caleb gasps and writhes beneath him, not knowing yet how to kiss back.

“Breathe,” Jared soothes, giving him more of his weight, making his thrusts a little deeper, drawing the most exquisite shudders out of Caleb that make his cunt shiver hot all around Jared’s cock. “That’s it. Just breathe and try to relax. It’ll feel so much better when you do.”

“It c-can’t feel better,” Caleb sobs, the heels of his hands pushing at Jared’s chest, his curled, dirty feet locked right up under Jared’s ass. “I think you’re hurtin’ me. I think I’m gonna have to go to the hospital.”

“No, you won’t,” Jared smiles, his tongue sliding out to fuck at Caleb’s wet mouth, so pleased when Caleb’s tongue lifts to touch his own, flicking shy and demure at it. He reaches between them and wraps a hand around Caleb’s sweet dick, his hand big enough to scoop his balls up in the same grip. He massages at him as he stays still inside of him, throbbing in the suffocating tightness as Caleb starts to suck on his tongue, working it like a slutty cam girl, making the most delicious sounds when he finally starts to stiffen up in Jared’s palm, leaking honey everywhere. 

“Ohmygod,” Caleb shivers, his bony hips lifting as best as they can under Jared’s massive, grinding body. The truck shrieks and whines when Jared starts to really work him, putting power behind every thrust that makes Caleb cry out into the dusk, his little belly bulged out with cock that is now completely nestled inside of him, taking more dick than most men twice his size could manage.

“Makin’ me feel so good. You’re doin’ so good, sweet boy. Takin’ me so fuckin’ good.” Sincere filth from behind gritted, bared teeth, and Caleb blossoms under the praise, under the attention, his scrawny arms thrown around Jared’s head like a little boy greets his daddy after a long day at work, and they’re kissing for real now, kissing like they do this every night, like Caleb has somebody he belongs to. Like Jared has someone who loves him.

He rubs Caleb’s dick until he drips out the most intense orgasm, his small body seizing up under Jared, pale throat exposed to a beast as he shakes apart on the punishing fuck of Jared’s cock, his thighs trembling against Jared’s hips. Jared leans back, shedding the last scraps of decency and settling in to get his dick wet. 

He shoves Caleb over onto his stomach and yanks his hips up, twisting him around on his dick until he’s got his face shoved in the blanket and Jared is spread-legged around him, straddling his ass and gripping it in hands that seem to want to tear the flesh right from his body. He bears down and lays into him, fucking him so hard the truck bounces menacingly, the sounds of rutting echoing in the quiet night.

Jared keeps a hand on Caleb’s head, shoving his face into the blanket so he can’t scream too loud, the other one gripped so tight around Caleb’s tiny hip that he feels the bones grind against his palm. He throws his head back, sweat flying from his messy hair, his closed eyes facing the nearly full moon as he drives in one final time, nestled into Caleb’s shredded guts and finally letting go.

He shakes through it, filling up a space barely big enough to even hold his cock, let alone all the come he’s unloading. Caleb’s asshole is swollen around him, throbbing hot and fast, and he gushes out come when he strains, trying to push Jared out. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Jared pants, bracketing his body with his knees and elbows digging into the bed of the truck, his mouth blowing cool air over Caleb’s back and leaving kisses in his wake. He’s on borrowed time and he knows it; he’s gotten away with too much in this town, and he’s never had much luck to speak of. 

“Please,” Caleb whispers, too soft to be anything but a plea. “Please, i-it hurts so bad.”

Jared savors the last few seconds of being inside of him, his nose nestled into the soft skin right behind his ear, the place where he smells just like Daniel, and it occurs to him right then what he’s doing, who he’s inside of, that he has this boy’s dead brother’s hand back on the bus in a sealed jar, and Caleb will never, ever know who Jared really is.

He pulls out in a drenched, painful slurp, his dick truly looking like a horsecock sliding out of such a small body. He settles back on his knees and tries to catch his breath, shaky hands reaching out to help Caleb up.

The boy doesn’t look at him, just grabs his jeans and jumps out of the bed of the truck, landing in the grass quietly. Jared follows but much more sluggishly, dragging his own jeans on and leaving his boots and shirt in the back. Caleb is leaning against the side of the truck, grasping at the rusted surface like it can help him. Jared takes one look at him, at the trail of pink cream slicking up his thin inner thighs, and he’s on his knees behind him.

He spreads his ass and dives in, tasting blood and come and the dirty insides of an unwashed boy as he sucks him dry, tonguing his abused hole until he tastes like nothing, until he’s raw and beard-burned and begging Jared to stop, his tiny hole fluttering and helplessly gaped around his tongue.

Jared pulls back like a man falling out of a possession, staring at Caleb’s spread ass, at his too-big hands holding him open, at the horror flick red of his well-used hole. He licks his lips and swallows down the rest of his meal, letting out one, final sigh before he stands up on shaky legs and lets the boy go.

Caleb steps quickly into his jeans and yanks them up on his hips, his burning cheeks streaked with tears as he rushes past Jared and opens the passenger door, climbing up into the truck. Jared follows, his movements slow and content, and he doesn’t start up the truck until he’s dug a cigarette out of his pack and lit it, exhaling out the window.

“You alright?” he asks, glancing over at Caleb who is curled up against the door, sniffling as he stares outside. He says nothing but nods in reply, and Jared eases out of the pull-off and onto the road, headed back to the trailer park.

They’re nearly there when Caleb speaks again.

“Are you leaving?” he asks softly.

Jared wants to smile, but it hurts too much.

“Yeah. Gotta gig in Savannah tomorrow night.”

Caleb’s quiet again, restless in it this time.

“Will you come see me again?”

Jared turns into the trailer park, killing the lights as he coasts in as quiet as possible. He doesn’t say anything until he slows to a stop in front of Caleb’s place, putting the truck into park and turning all of his attention to the boy at his side.

“I think we both know that’s a pretty fuckin’ bad idea,” he finally says.

Caleb wipes his face off with both his hands, looking more like a little boy than ever. Jared’s dick stirs painfully in his jeans.

“Will you forget about me?” Caleb asks, his hands twisting together in his lap. Jared reaches over, forefinger sliding along his cheek and tucking his hair behind his ear.

“Never,” he says, and he means it. Of course he means it. “I never, ever will.”

There’s a beat of silence and then the truck is moving again, this time because Caleb has launched himself across the seat and wrapped his arms around Jared’s neck again, his wet face tucked in against his throat.

“I wish you could stay here and be my boyfriend,” Caleb murmurs against his skin, digging out unpracticed kisses there and nuzzling fitfully. Jared closes his eyes and buries his face into Caleb’s sweaty hair, his arms slowly coming up to wrap around him, keeping him tucked in close, painfully close.

“Just keep doing good in school. Keep reading and listening to your brother’s music. You’ll find kids your age who will be good to you, who are like you. You’ll find somebody then, somebody who’ll take care of you the way you deserve. You hear me?”

Caleb nods against his neck, sniffling there, leaving snot and tears in his wake. He lifts his head and kisses Jared, much better than he was an hour ago, letting Jared lick into his mouth until they’re both breathless and warm again.

“Here,” Jared says, reaching into his backpocket and pulling out his wallet, digging out all the cash he has there and pushing it into Caleb’s hand. “It’s a few hundred, I think. Not much, but it’s yours. Don’t give it to your mama or to that fuckhead Patrick. Nobody. Keep it somewhere safe in your room, and only use it for you. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Caleb says, soft and awed, staring at the wad of twenties in his little hands. He pushes it into his pocket and looks up at Jared through his lashes, leaning up to press a tiny kiss to the tip of his nose. “Thank you. For dinner and… and everything.”

“Thank _you_ for everything,” Jared replies, grinning as he gives Caleb’s ass a firm slap. He reaches over him and opens the passenger door, nodding for him to climb out. He watches him go, his throat tight as he slams the door and gazes back into the dark truck and right into Jared’s eyes somehow, looking tearful and bereft and knowing, all at once.

“Bye, Jay.”

“Bye, kid.”

He puts the truck into drive and pulls out slow and unnoticed, watching as Caleb’s tiny shadow only gets smaller and smaller until he disappears completely. He only turning his lights on when he gets back to the main road, grabbing the forgotten strawberry shake from the cupholder and finishing it with a shattering sort of relish. He doesn’t stop driving until he ends up back in the cemetery.

The bouquet of red roses behind the seat aren’t as fresh as they’d been this morning, but they’re fragrant and beautiful and look just right tucked into the stone vases on either side of Daniel’s headstone. Jared’d bought him a new one last year, had called and done it all by phone and email, paid an obscene amount of money, but this headstone is lovely: his name and birth and death dates scrawled in a ridiculously romantic, gothic font that Daniel would love with stone roses etched around it. 

It’s what he deserves.

He says nothing as he settles in on top of the flat earth in front of the headstone, all the words stolen from him by the unexpected sins of the day. He wipes the dirt and leaves from the stone, from the letters carved into it, pressing a kiss to the cold of Daniel’s name.

“Hey, you,” he whispers.

The night is warm but the ground is cold, and he feels cradled when he curls up on it, his head pillowed on his bicep, face nestled into the grass growing up from Daniel’s grave. 

It’s the soundest he’s slept since he was here last, all those years ago.


End file.
